


Christmas is for Family

by Saraste



Series: 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Advent Ficlet Challenge 2019, Christmas, Day 12. Bah humbug, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: Harry moves from a rather dismissive attitude to loving Christmas and finding it's true meaning.
Series: 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558918
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge





	Christmas is for Family

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 12. bah humbug of the 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge. I went a bit... creative with this prompt. (I find it hard to write anyone hating on Christmas.)

As a child before learning he was a wizard, before Hogwarts, before everything, Harry had known that Christmas wasn’t meant for him.

Christmas was for family, and he might have called the adults in his life aunt and uncle, but they didn’t treat him like they should have, Harry had known as much even early on. He was too skinny and dark and odd to be considered properly family. He might have gotten the nominal useless hand-off as a “gift”, a gesture of obligation, nothing more. And when they ate and made merry in the sitting room, Harry sat alone on his bed, in his cupboard under the stairs, telling himself that he didn’t care it was Christmas, and that he wouldn’t get anything except the merest hint of a turkey slice later, he didn’t.

At Hogwarts Harry learned the true meaning of Christmas as a time of joy and good cheer. Hogwarts at Christmas was magical to him not just because of magic itself, but because everyone seemed to be genuinely happy and there was no cupboard and he could eat as much as he wished. At Hogwarts he was happy at Christmas for the first time that he could remember. And he revelled in it, embracing it fully.

He considered, later and when the memory didn’t hurt so much for being a singular occurrence, that the Christmas at Twelve Grimmauld Place was his first family Christmas, a proper one. It was Sirius’ last. And that was why he couldn’t bear to live in the place, for the memories of what should have been, all those Christmases with him and Sirius and Remus they never got.

Godric’s Hollow was a singular occasion as well, steeped with the ghosts of Christmases past, bittersweet and also absolutely nerve-wracking with all that happened.

And after… his next Christmas was a Weasley one, the Burrow packed with familiar faces, sorrow mixed in with joy, and sombre tales told of those lost. And they laughed and they cried and ate too much, and that was Christmas, and it was good. There, sitting on a ratty old couch, still half expecting to see faces forever gone looking at him, with a squirming Teddy in his arms, Harry knew that Christmas was for him, too, would be, as long as he allowed it.

Christmas was for family, and he was surrounded by his, the happier for it.


End file.
